Android powered Google AR glasses to land this year

According to a report by the New York Times tech section Bits, we could be seeing the much-speculated Android-powered Google AR glasses landing before 2012 is up.

We first got wind of the project at the end of last year when 9to5Google ran a story claiming it was an open secret that Google was working on wearable technology in its secret Google X lair, and that the search giant was "in late prototype stages of wearable glasses" that "provide a display with a heads up computer interface".

The Google-centric blog then followed this up this month with claims that the HUD glasses "have a front-facing camera used to gather information and could aid in augmented reality apps" and "will also take pictures".

The NYT's report now states that "several Google employees familiar with the project" have said the clever-specs will go on sale by the end of the year and would "cost around the price of current smartphones" (which is a bit vague, we know).

The "Android-based" glasses will apparently feature a small screen, 3G or 4G data connectivity, "a number of sensors including motion and GPS" as well as a "unique navigation system".

Steve Lee, a Google engineer who apparently created Google Latitude is said to be involved with a view to having layer based location data at the forefront (literally) of the design and Google co-founder Sergey Brin is also purported to be heavily involved in the project.

The report states that Google will gauge user interest before it decides upon potential business models to fully monetise the tech.